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E-bikes are a Transportation Revolution
Background
My E-Bikes / Specs
Reflections
Getting Started
Gear / Accessories
Documenting Rides
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E-bikes are a Transportation Revolution
I bought an e-bike in November 2020, it was life-changing, and now I have 4 (pedal-assist, not throttle). I'm documenting my reflections about the e-bike space here, in the hope it will help others.
4 e-bikes on the Hoboken waterfront
Index
β
Background
: bike-sharer β bike-owner β e-bike maniac
β
My e-bikes
β
β
Overview/Specs
: weights between 35-60lbs, ranges from 25-130mi, prices from $1900-$7000 ($2500-$8000 incl. gear)
β
VanMoof X3
: great all-around / starter / city e-bike
β
Brompton Electric
: smallest fold, most portable, great all around
β
Tern Vektron Q9
: large cargo capacity, folds up for easy storage
β
Specialized Creo Comp Carbon
: light, fast, long-range
β
Reflections
β
β
Speed βΉ Safety
: higher top speed β and acceleration β make a big difference in traffic
β
Speed βΉ Inclusion
: a lot more people can get around quickly+comfortably on ebikes
β
Speed βΉ Convenience
: ebikes are as fast as cars in urban environments; can solve congestion and parking issues
β
Space
: high mobility per unit space; combine with other modes (trains, buses, ferries)
β
Bike vs. Car Storage
: parking takes too much space in cities, and is heavily subsidized; bike parking is 5-10x more efficient
β
Cost
: the average car cost could fund e-bikes for 10 families
β
Cargo
:
β
Groceries, Bulk Items
: basically any grocery run, and a surprising number of bulk item moves, can be done via e-bike
β
Kids
: easy to carry 1 or 2 kids by e-bike
β
PoV: Grocery Runs
: I get groceries by e-bike and it's great
β
PoV: Moving House
: I moved across town β with 2wks of stuff β by ebike
β
Health
β
β
Fun
β
β
Car sewers
: cars make streets miserable for everyone not in a car; doing this to 100% of streets is extreme, and terrible policy.
β
Getting Started
β
β
Bike Shares
: easy way to get used to city biking/scooting (if unfamiliar)
β
Renting
: rent a few types of bikes before buying one
β
Safety
β
β
Stats
β
β
Speed
β
β
Fear
β
β
Riding on Sidewalks
β
β
Stopping at Stop Signs / Red Lights
β
β
Braking
:
Sheldon Brown on front brakes
β
β
Helmets
: can't hurt, but often used to blame/criminalize cyclists for infrastructure/engineering problems
β
Lights
: the more the better
β
Hi-Viz Clothing
: similar to helmets; good practice, but often discussed unfairly
β
Route Planning
:
Street View
,
Ride with GPS
,
Strava
all useful
β
Traveling with E-bikes
:
flying
generally not possible (might work with e-brompton);
trains/boats
generally easy/possible
β
Starter Packs
β
β
VanMoof X3 + Gear
: $83/mo (incl. maintenance/theft/insurance coverage), $3k outright
β
RadPower
: popular under $2k
β
Reading
β
β
ElectricBikeReview.com
β
β
r/ebikes
β
β
Gear
: 10-20% a bike's cost in add-ons can make it 10x more useful
β
Helmets
: I use
a Lumos "Kickstart"
helmet with lights built in
β
Racks, Baskets
: starting point for carrying bags' worth of stuff on rides
β
Bags
: get weight off of you and onto the bike, where it
rolls
β
Panniers
: bags that hang from sides of back rack; can be quite large, very useful
β
Cockpit Bags
: smaller bags up around your handlebars for essentials
β
Frame Bags
: small/medium bags attached to the frame
β
Back-Rack / Seat Bags
: medium bags on top of back rack or behind+underneath seat
β
Phone Mounts
: phone mounted up front (e.g. w/ turn-by-turn directions) is surprisingly useful; I use
Quad Lock
.
β
Lights
:
front
,
rear
,
party
,
Vont 'Pyro' (set)
,
KNOG (set)
β
β
Locks
:
Kryptonite U-lock + cable
(medium weight, decent security),
OnGuard U-Lock
(lighter / more clearance but weaker),
OTTO cable lock
(compact+light extra security layer)
β
Misc. Accessories
:
bell
, rear-view mirrors (
1
2
),
kickstand
,
hand pump
β
β
Gloves
:
padded gloves
,
light but warm winter gloves
β
β
Rain Gear
:
Clever Hoods
are popular + good
β
Winter Cycling
: easier+better than you think, $200 of gear solves cold down to β25ΒΊF
β
Heated Gloves
:
my main pair
,
another good pair
, and
one that actually makes a women's size
β
β
Heated Vests
β
β
Pogies
β
β
Heated Socks
β
β
Hand Warmers
β
β
Action Cameras
: I use a
GoPro Hero 9 Black
and
GoPro Hero 8 Black
, in
a chest harness and seat-rail mount
, to
film rides
β
β
Padded Shorts
:
good all-around active shorts w/ pockets
β
β
Documenting Rides
β
β
Ride-tracking apps
:
β
Strava
: robust recording app (resumes after phone crashes), good small-circle social network, good open data posture
β
RideWithGPS
: similar to Strava, emphasis on route planning/sharing, UX is clunkier
β
wandrer.earth
: cool app on top of Strava, providing stats/viz about places you've been and places you might still like to explore
β
Post-Processing Videos
: dealing with videos afterward is its own adventure
β
GoPros
are pretty hard to deal with; telemetry data is often not recorded correctly, and the GoPro software ecosystem is a mess
β
External SSDs
:
1TB
/
2TB
Samsungs, palm-sized
β
512GB micro-SD
: never worry about SD-card capacity in-camera (there's enough to worry about when the data comes off the camera)
β
Wasabi Cloud Storage
: cheap+easy cloud storage; good option for archival video storage
β
VFX Suites
: unfortunately necessary to do anything with action-camera videos
β
YouTube
: I've posted some ride videos to
Neighbor Ryan on YouTube
β
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Last modified
11mo ago
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